The University of Virginia will organize and manage the 2010 NSF Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) Grantees Workshop at the Westin Hotel, Arlington, VA, April 25-27, 2010. The purpose of this second such PFI grantees workshop is to provide a forum for a gathering of NSF-sponsored researchers on active awards supported by the Partnership for Innovation (PFI) Program. In addition, for each award, the forum should include a representative from among the non-academic partners and a representative from among the students involved in the project. The objectives of the workshop are to (1) seek broad participation of PFI industry partners, including executives, department heads, or unit heads of large corporations, owners/employees of small businesses and entrepreneurs; (2) discuss avenues for "follow-on funding" by engaging angel investors, venture capitalists, foundations, and thought leaders from the local- and state-government-funded economic development community; and (3) strategize ways to improve the PFI program moving forward in the context of key success stories. The focus will be on people, insights into future human needs and desires, clear communication among academic science and technology, government, industry, and the public. These are the essential elements of an innovation ecosystem, and these will be explored with the PFI gathering, through a number of mechanisms, including interactive working sessions on cognitive mapping, re-invention strategies in the corporate world, the interfaces of art/media/technology/innovation and comparisons of innovation practices in the U.S, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The intellectual merit of this proposal lies in the roadmap for sustaining value creation and innovation that will emerge from the workshop. The interaction and discussion among workshop attendees will provide NSF with a description of key advances afforded by the PFI program. Perhaps more importantly, stories of successful PFI programs will result in recommendations for "best practices" to translate research and education into innovation that amplifies productivity, increases global wealth, and improves human well-being. Moreover, the collegial, interactive and thought-provoking atmosphere to be invoked during the workshop, coupled with networking opportunities during breaks and an after-hours social event, will foster new relationships and collaborations intended to transcend traditional barriers among academic, corporate, government, and investment entities, helping to define the core of innovation ecosystems.
The broader impacts of this proposal include providing a roadmap for sustaining value creation and innovation in a creative economy. Given the diversity of active PFI awards (in terms of their focus, approach, and organizational and geographic composition), it is anticipated that this roadmap will shed light on targeted ways to provide experiential education of young talent for the twenty-first century innovation workforce and accelerate translation of research into products and services. New insight into how to develop curricula for an entrepreneurial enterprise can be gained as well as into how to merge scientific, engineering, research, marketing, business, and legal units within an organization or across many organizations (in potentially multiple geographic locations).
